Ntando Cele
Challenging yet humorous performer
Swiss Performing Arts Award 2023
Ntando Cele was born in Durban (South Africa) in 1980. She studied acting therefore before completing a Master in theatre at DasArts in Amsterdam in 2009. She lives in Bern, where she founded the group Manaka Empowerment Prod. in 2014 together with the Bernese poet and rapper Raphael Urweider and the composer and musician Simon Ho, who is also from Bern and occasionally plays keyboards on stage. In its productions, the group offers a humorous, charming and sometimes even shocking take on such topics as identity, racism and stereotypes. Confronting the audience with their own perceptions, the pieces can be seen throughout Switzerland – at the Schlachthaus Theater Bern, the Kaserne Basel, Zurich’s Rote Fabrik, the Belluard Bollwerk festival in Fribourg and the Théâtre Saint-Gervais in Geneva – as well as internationally at festivals and guest theatres in Amsterdam, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Lille, Santarcangelo, Berlin and Brussels. Cele was invited to perform her solo work Go Go Othello at the Swiss Theatre Encounter in 2021, but the performance had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.
Ntando Cele has been developing theatre and performance projects in Africa and Europe since 2005. She blends physical theatre with video installation, stand-up comedy and performance. Working closely with Urweider and Ho, she combines music, text and video to create her own style as she searches for identity and authenticity in the life stories of black artists past and present. As the stand-up comedian Bianca White, she uses her wit to address the hidden racism in everyday life and gleefully dissect prejudices and stereotypes. In Go Go Othello (2020), Cele takes Othello – the only black protagonist in the classical western theatre canon – as the inspiration for her role as a showgirl in a sleazily glamorous nightclub. In her latest work SPAfrica (2023), directed by Julian Hetzel and premiered at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, she delves into the connections between capitalism and racism via the theme of water.
Ntando Cele does not let her audience off easily. As she sings in her latest production SPAfrica, she would rather be the one who bites the hand that feeds her. It is this courage and perseverance, paired with a wide range of performance skills, which make her works so strong. It comes as no surprise that Ntando Cele tours them not only in several parts of Switzerland but also to major festivals and venues abroad. Her work is a badly needed challenge to the predominantly white cultural scene of Central Europe and its audience, and it is Ntando Cele’s virtuosity which makes the impact.
Nicolette Kretz, jury member
